Coming home!

It has been nearly ten years since my last post. So much has happened and I’ve learnt many lessons about myself, this world I survive in. It’s been hard and at times almost impossible. I revisited my previous posts and felt they were written by someone else and yet the vernacular and quirks felt as familiar as old slippers. However, I have a new pair and these are fun and daring me to walk into rooms I’ve never visited let alone thought about. I’ve turned 50. I feel liberated and naughty! I don’t mean in an anarchic sense but an internal rebelling against my expectations and everything that I’ve taken for granted as ‘normal’. My locus of control as always been external. I’m a people pleaser to the point of ridiculous. I’ve had body art that I didn’t really ask for but didn’t want to offend the tattooist. I’ve even taken exams and course work and jobs that I hated from about hour three. I’ve stuck them out as I didn’t want to seem reckless and foolish. I’ve even had abusive relationships that I certainly didn’t want or need but felt embarrassed to quit so early into the relationship.

Cue Peri menopause please! I think I’m in uncharted waters but it’s difficult to know as I don’t want to jinx anything but am very lucky that my journey so far is on a calm sea. I’ve suffered from Dysmenorrhea since day one and this alongside mental health difficulties has really taken on the bedrock of my existence. Every month I’d gear up to the demoralising phone calls into work and dreading the pending any that I knew was coming my way. I’ve lost count of A&E visits for morphine. I even had an informed temporary menopause by having inserted directly into my abdomen, Gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonists. It was a living hell and I nearly ended it all let alone we had to remortgage our home due to me giving up work from the side effects. I was left feeling deflated, useless and abnormal. I grieved for all the women and girls suffering from this torture. I pray one day that women”s health will be less mediaeval and with buckets more humanity. It’s not lost on me that our ‘time of life’ (and indeed a great time) is called ‘MENoPAUSE’. Thankfully for me, my husband held my hand throughout, never losing his temper at my suffering, unlike some of the women in my history.

Next on stage – Boarding School. I realised in my 30’s when I witnessed musical children that I was indeed a talented young musician (even staring on the programme of the same name). I worked hard at my violin and gained recognition, smiles and praise which was intoxicating. I like the ‘busyiness’ of the instrument and the time I could spend on my own was also a device to keep me away from autocratic adults and a difficult relationship dynamic at home. However, although my memory for notation was incredibly good, I struggled to recall what I was playing and differentiating composer styles and bow work. I wasn’t at all interested in school and didn’t see the point. Sadly, this led to very low grades and a dichotomy of impressions compared with my music career. After a gruelling three day ‘event’ of auditions and interrogations by top musicians, the common entrance exam was bookended with a performance to the present school’s Scholars. I won a Department of Education Scholarship Specialist place and from that day on the dizzying heights of performing like little monkeys became a hatred that I have no words to expressive with. The same disdain I hold towards some of the boarding house staff is with the same harrowing rancour. They behaved likewise…apart from the domestic staff who I loved. These working class ladies were so engaging and I’d have sneaky chats on the servant stairs we all had to use so the higher echelons of staff were kept in contempt. These chats kept me grounded, made me feel loved as they told me tales of their holidays or about their grandchildren. My own Grandma wrote to me often and sent me a whole packet of stamps. She was a poor pensioner and I think I was secretly her favourite! She tried hard to dissuade my folks from letting me go after a horrific incidence of yet another suicide of a 16 year old boy the term before I started. It was a fait complete. My parents paid the renowned violin maker William Luff to make me a violin. She was beautiful and sang like a bird from paradise itself. The scholars made an interesting motley crew who somewhat surprised people when we toured. you could hear anything from Brommie, Scouse, Scottish, Welsh and Bristolian to Korean, Malaysian, Chinese or Norwegian. Unlike our peers who were mainly military offspring, we were the grafting musicians from anywhere, working anytime from 6 am to 9pm when school finished, including Saturdays. I went, did well with my music until my ‘accident’ at 17, badly well academically (but more ‘O’ levels that Bowie so…) and have endured no end of my entire life almost apologising to all those who have never stepped inside a private school. It’s not a walk in the park but at least its a pretty decent one on the surface I suppose. Most people associate Public schools with the toffs of politics so its not surprising conjure up the image of superiority and ignorance. One thing to make very clear is that I didn’t choose my education. My hard working parents did. I actually failed dismally in my academic exams and yet years later, with the guidance of professors and my best friend’s mum, an adult student, I learnt how to revise and take exams. I excelled at all my nursing studies, covering new subjects such as anatomy and physiology, psychology, sociology and statistics. I loved it all and lapped it up.

At the risk of turning this post into an autobiography with a generous side helping of tissues, I spent years as a ‘normal working person’ whilst all the time feeling like a failure. I studied hard for my Nursing Advanced Diploma and continued working as a staff nurse in forensics. There wasn’t any other work available and this was 37 miles from home and working 14 hour back to back shifts with unpredictable and violent adults was no fun. So when I survived a car accidentI after one particularly horrible shift, I used it as ‘reason’ to hang up my uniform. I reverted to type, back in retail and dirty pots n’pans. I was frequently in and out of work as I got so bored or seemed to attract the work bully like glue. I would predictably be reminded of this when somehow a work colleague would discover I wasn’t locally educated. We only had one secondary school so the endorsement of my lowly working life position was a thorough source of amusement and derision. Suffice to say, I’ve never worked with other people very well. I’ve pot washed, prepped food and cleaned for posh people. This was encouraged at school by the offer of work experience at the local art gallery. I was so thrilled as it gave me validation that I wanted a switch and apply to art college and lay down my music career. Day one arrived and I wore my Sunday best for a good impression. The gallery owner took me upstairs, presumably to talk me through the duties of running the show and working the till etc. I nearly vomited my heart out when she showed me the disgusting kitchen and presented me with rubber gloves to start my cleaning job. That’s what a public school can do to you; break you down, build you up into a worker like a Private and subservient people pleaser. A perfect storm evoked for someone with a low self worth, oh and ADHD.

You can read my Bio on the website for other work details and the highlight of my 30’s was having a beautiful daughter. My idea of success arrived! I had a family. Time has passed and I’ve taken on the usual culprit roles such as committee membership and school governor, taking the position of safe guarding. (I wonder why?!) and my 40’s had been a ride I didn’t expect and just clung on as parents do with the added hat of carer. My daughter is now a teenager and was very fortunate that during lock down, was asked if I’d illustrate some children’s books. I jumped at it and found it relatively easy to produce as the text created the images, negating the fear of white paper completely. Three books, a trilogy edition and a colour picture storybook later, has projected me into this world of art work that I’ve never experienced. Working remotely with people in other countries and publishing jargon was an eye opener. The work finished and I was left feeling motivated to carry on and explore my rekindled childhood fantasy of being…’an artist’. And then……..and then the procrastination and fear.

The latter half of last year was a strange one to say the least. I experienced three trips to the hospital for suspected cancer. I can’t express the gamut of emotions that I experienced in the weeks around these biopsies, the physical pain and the sheer elation at the good news. I’ll leave it there because I’m gratefully free of anything nasty and don’t need to ponder on it. I’m a very lucky lady. My next hurdle was a mental health one. I’m in the recognisably mundane inner environment of my emotional brain. Its a dark, freezing and foreboding place with paranoia and weeping sores of pain, indescribable thoughts and feelings strewn around like stinking, rotting detritus to trip upon. During several therapeutic sessions for life long Dermatillomania, I’d been advised to seek a diagnosis for ADHD. That was a bizarre and unnecessarily cruel process (good luck if you live in UK). I ended up in the office of a friendly psychiatric doctor. I’m trialling a an SNRI that helps my co morbidities and is known to ease the symptoms of ADHD. I think there is a definite progression and the suicidal menace has f**ked off. The only difficulty I have is fatigue and procrastination. The mixture of manmade and biological chemicals are difficult to separate the blame but I’m just cruising with it. One thing I notice is the strange phenomena of working 9-5, all year round. Animals hibernate and I certainly do! I’m coming into the springtime energy (writing today on the vernal Equinox which seems apropriate) and shoots are emerging that I don’t recognise.

So here I am! I’ve started painting and drawing ideas, conjuring up ideas at night time. Its great and I pray it continues…Navigating this new world of nebulous IT is a very big challenge for me. I recently described my difficulties with it by suggesting an athlete needing to accurately draw a human body, and name, in Latin, all the muscles! Can you imagine? This is what its like for so many of us who muddle through technology but really need to rely on it for progression and recognition of sorts. It’s a bitter sweet pill. But then, I’m used to taking medication…